On the ASB Audit Trail

I attended the El Tejon Unified School District Board meeting for October. I had never seen one before and I was very interested in how the board would react to the results of the audit of the high school Associated Student Body (ASB) account.

Jason Kaff, an Internal Auditor who works in Administration and Finance Services for the Kern County Superintendent of Schools, performed the audit of the ASB.

Kaff’s audit was of the 2008-2009 school year. He spoke about some of the procedures that the ASB and the school bookkeeper are not completing correctly and some possible ways to fix them. As the ASB Executive Secretary for this school year, I was very pleased to see how the ASB could improve and I was happy with Trustee Anita Anderson for constantly asking questions and trying to help not only herself, but also the students, by trying to fully understand what needs to be done.

I was surprised to see the reactions displayed by Trustees Paula Regan and Cathy Wallace. They seemed to be annoyed with Anita Anderson’s questions and appeared to be frustrated that it was taking so much time to discuss the subject.

When Mr. Kaff completed his report about the ASB Audit, Trustee Anderson wished to make one last comment on the subject before the discussion closed. Paula Regan then tried to have Mrs. Anderson wait until the next meeting to speak because it was against meeting procedure to have comments in a questions time. Anderson then made a quick comment stating how pleased she was that so many people are trying to help end the ASB debt. She said she hopes for further investigation into what caused the financial difficulties in past years. Postponing the statement to the next meeting would mean that this small acknowledgment would wait a month to be brought up on the agenda.

Going to the board meeting was very enlightening for me because I was able to learn more about what our district is doing to help the students at Frazier Mountain High School. I hope that more inquiry is performed by the board by having more audits performed on the 2006-2007 and 2007-2008 school years.